


Certain Dark Things

by Patches OHoolahan (Patches42)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:59:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3644394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patches42/pseuds/Patches%20OHoolahan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love you because I know no other way. (Pablo Neruda, XVII)</p>
<p>Left with five children and no explanations John sifts through a past he has forgotten for a future he can't imagine. </p>
<p>Reichenbach fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

The baby in Sherlock’s arms made a grabby hand so John handed over the piece of the carrot he was currently chopping for the stew. The baby, twelve months old and too young to really be able to chew gummed around the vegetable for a moment. He made a face and dropped the carrot on the floor.

“Yuck Daddy!”

“Yes, good boy Jasper,” Sherlock said, and handed the little boy another biscuit from the tin.

“Sherlock! Stop that. No Jasper, that is not what we do with food,” John, forgetting his pregnancy for a moment, made an attempt to pick the carrot up off the floor, but he only got a quarter of the way before he aborted the movement. Jasper, for his part, appeared not to hear as he gummed on his new treat. Sherlock set the boy down, who promptly crawled under the table, set his biscuit on the floor, pulled off his nappy and threw it across the kitchen. He wiped stray biscuit crumbs on his stained yellow shirt and took up the biscuit again, lying flat on the floor and staring up at the table. He sang to himself as he ate.

John stared for a minute, looked around at the disaster zone of the kitchen, at Sherlock’s forgotten experiments, the results of Jasper learning to aim and throw, the nail polish spilled all over the tile, and very carefully set down his knife, turned off the stove and moved towards the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock looked slightly panicked.

“No. I’m nearly nine months pregnant. This flat is a shit hole. That baby is a menace. The girls have destroyed the entire upstairs. And I am tired. I am going to lie down now, and I reserve the right to not get up again until this baby is born.” With that John slammed the bedroom door and left Sherlock to the mercies of his children.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock could hear the rhythmic clanging and banging of the newest game that Eloise and Winifred had invented in the past week, and under that cacophony of noise Jasper’s little voice as he sung the rough tune to _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ to himself for the millionth time. Sherlock gave it half a minute before he bounded down the stairs bellowing for Mrs. Hudson.

But she wasn’t in, and the girls were calling for him upstairs. Jasper was still under the table, singing, and Jemima his twin sister was sleeping peacefully in John’s old armchair when Sherlock passed the sitting room. She was on her belly and her little bottom was pushed up into the air, her lips sucking on a phantom pacifier. Sherlock patted her little rump and wondered where on earth all these children had come from.

Eloise all of four years old, had completely destroyed the bedroom she shared with her two and a half year old sister. Winifred was sitting in a pile of stuffed animals with their heads torn off. The red pacifier in her mouth stolen from her younger siblings, and the fringe plastered to her forehead with sweat telling of a recent crying jag. Whatever Eloise had done to poor Winifred had clearly been dealt with by the managing four year old.

“Oh, Father, good, you’re here.”

Sherlock hated when she called him that.

“What is it Eloise?”

“An experiment. I need your help. Please sit with Winifred, she became scared the last time I tried.”

Curious, Sherlock sat down and Winifred eagerly crawled into his lap. She gave him a round smile from behind the pacifier and then leaned back against his chest, apparently about to snuggle in for a nap.

Eloise crawled under her bed, and when she re-emerged she had a pair of gloves pilfered from Sherlock’s stores and the kitchen scissors in her hand. She pulled on the gloves and took up the scissors before approaching Sherlock and Winifred.

“No,” Said Winifred with a vehemence that the girl had only learned as of late. “Leave alone!”

“What is the experiment?” Sherlock said when Winifred began to shrink into his chest. A bit not good, he could hear the hiccupping that preceded a good cry.

“I just need some hair. Winnie has the longest,” Eloise said, tongue between her teeth and glinting scissors reaching for the dark curls of her younger sister.

“Hm,” Said Sherlock.

“Papa please! Scared,” Said Winifred.

“Be quiet,” Said Eloise.

In one fluid motion Sherlock stood with his daughter in his arms and looked down at Eloise. “No, not a good experiment Eloise. Let’s go make a better one.”

Eloise’s eyes sparkled as she handed over the scissors, “Really?”

“Yes. Go get some clothes for your brother, we’re all going out.”

Eloise raced from the room and Sherlock went downstairs. He put Winifred on the floor and she sat under the table with Jasper. They shared the pacifier.

Jemima, still neatly dressed in the outfit John had made for her this morning was easy to wake and went into his arms willingly, little nose snuffling in his neck. When Eloise came back downstairs she forced Jasper into a new nappy, and pulled one of her red pairs of tights over his legs. He protested at the cardigan she was stuffing his arms into until he recognized the colour as pink and then cooed happily. Sherlock scooped up his son in his unoccupied arm, with Winifred and Eloise trailing after him down the stairs.

 

* * *

 

 

Two hours later when John woke up to a completely silent flat, he worried. Jasper was never quiet. Although neither of the twins talked much, at least Jasper was always singing, always throwing something. And Eloise was always terrorizing Winifred. But there were no cries from upstairs, or sounds of little voices. He rose carefully from the bed, trying, uselessly, to spare his aching back as much as possible and went to investigate. The sitting room was a state. Since John had grown too large to continue picking up after the children some weeks ago the entire flat looked like a tornado had come through it. Sherlock, of course, hadn’t noticed, as long as his sock index was untouched. John had half a mind to enlist Jasper’s throwing arm.

Looking out the sitting room windows John spotted his children sitting on the sidewalk across the street. Jasper looked like a drunken person had dressed him in the dark but he was happily rubbing his face in what John identified as Eloise’s cardigan. Sherlock was standing on the stoop of the newsagent pontificating about one thing or another, Eloise, entranced, sat with a straight back, absently stroking Jemima’s hair as his youngest, and quietest child rested her head against Eloise’s thigh. Winifred, sucking on Jasper’s pacifier, was playing in the mud puddle, intermittently splashing Jasper who would giggle and splash her back when he lifted his head out of Eloise’s cardigan long enough to. None of them were wearing shoes and the tights that Jasper was wearing had feet to them, even from this distance John could see the mud caked into the red soles.

He called Mrs. Hudson’s mobile.

“Hello John, I’m just out at the shops. I’m almost on my way home.”

“That’s wonderful, do you think you could help out a bit this afternoon?”

There was a stunned silence from the other end of the connection. John hadn’t even asked for her help when he’d been in labour with the twins and been taking care of the girls while Sherlock was out on a case. He’d sat in the flat for fifteen hours’ painful contractions until Mrs. Hudson had finally heard a particularly loud groan from where she'd been sweeping at the bottom of the stairs.

“What’s happened? Shall I come straight away?”

John knocked his forehead on the window as he watched Winnie pick up a handful of mud and plop it on Jasper’s head, much to his delight, “No, it’s all fine. I just need a bit of a hand with the cleaning up, if you don’t mind.”

Mrs. Hudson tittered nervously, “Of course, of course. I’ll be home in a jiffy.”

“Thank you.”

John went back to the kitchen and finished the stew. By the time he’d left it to simmer Sherlock and the children were stamping up the stairs.

“Everyone in the bath, right now,” John called from the kitchen.

He heard Sherlock’s hesitation on the landing for a moment, and then as he finally changed course and headed into the bathroom to run the water in the bath, knowing that John couldn’t reach the taps himself. “I’ve got it,” He said, and John scoffed.

The four sets of little feet were decidedly less enthusiastic about the bath scenario and they entered the kitchen as a united front.

“I bathed yesterday, Father, I’m still clean,” Said Eloise.

“I fine Daddy. I like being dirty,” Said Winnie.

“No,” Said Jasper.

Jemima smiled, “Daddy! Awake!” And she ran over to him, lifting her arms expectantly. John knelt slowly to the floor and cuddled the little girl to his chest. In a few weeks he’d be normal again, he’d be able to lift all four kids again at the same time, and keep them so on their toes that they wouldn’t have time to terrorise him but until then he was stuck bumbling through his day through a fog of immense fatigue, and very little strength.

“Up, please,” Said Jemima.

“Not yet Jem. Daddy’s belly is still too heavy. After the baby is born, okay?” John let her go and used the table as leverage to stand up again.

Sherlock came into the kitchen, “The bath is ready, the temperature is at optimum level now, I’d suggest you all come quickly so that it doesn’t get cold before you’ve finished.”

Eloise looked mutinous, but she crossed her arms, stuck her nose in the air and led the way to the bathroom. The others, as in almost everything, followed her lead.

“Did you sleep?” Sherlock came into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around John from behind, putting his nose directly in the crook of John’s neck.

John hummed. “Mrs. Hudson is coming up a bit later to help order the house up a bit.”

Sherlock sighed, but didn’t say anything as he nuzzled John’s neck and stroked his immense belly.

“How’s the baby?”

“Quiet today, I think she’s getting close now.” John leaned heavily into Sherlock, soaking up as much comfort and care as he could. Sherlock was always more affectionate when John was pregnant but still these moments were few and far between and infinitely precious to John when he just felt like flying apart.

Winnie began to scream, and John could hear as Eloise tried to lecture her into silence. Jasper was laughing wildly. “You better go now. Before somebody drowns in there,” John said, stepping away.

Sherlock huffed and trudged down the little hallway. He was typical in that he loved nothing more than seeing John barefoot and pregnant, yet John knew that Sherlock was always looking forward to the time when John would resume the no-fun bits of parenting. Well, Sherlock had another thing coming this time.

Sherlock growled from the bathroom and all four children squealed in delight and then John heard wild splashing. Sherlock was definitely going to clean up in the bathroom.

When Mrs. Hudson came in not ten minutes later the splashing had died down to some measure but the four little voices were still chatting nonstop in the echoing loudness of the tiled room.

“Oh, dear,” Said Mrs. Hudson as she set down a tray of freshly baked biscuits. “It is a right state up here. That Sherlock is so useless.” She looked at John, who was trying valiantly to scrub off the pink stain from one of Sherlock’s experiments from the kitchen counter and huffed, “Oh no, dear you sit down. Let me get you some tea, and you have some of my biscuits, I’ll do this.”

Ordinarily John would have scoffed and ignored her, but he only felt stupidly grateful as he sunk into a kitchen chair and she pressed a warm mug of tea into his hands. He sipped and watched the whirlwind of his landlady as she tidied the sitting room. By the time the children could be heard climbing out of their bath the room was looking more recognizable as an actual sitting room and much less like the bottom of a rubbish tip. Four little bodies wrapped in towels with animal faces on the hoods trooped into the kitchen.

“Father said you had to inspect us,” Said Eloise’s voice from behind the towel with the rabbit ears.

“Come here then,” John said and Eloise rushed forward, John lifted her hood and his little rosie cheeked girl beamed up at him. Her blonde wispy hair waterlogged, and dark blue eyes bright with Sherlock’s no longer entirely personal brand of intelligent mischief. “There’s my love,” John kissed her cheek and made a show of sniffing her neck and hair.

She giggled, “Daddy! Stop!”

“John, I’ll just go get their pyjamas!” Sherlock called as he bounded up the stairs to the children’s bedrooms.

“Fine,” he said, and touched his nose to Eloise’s. “Perfect Eli. Papa did a good job.”

Eloise frowned and crossed her arms under her towel, “No. I did a good job. Father didn’t wash me at all. I did it.”

John chuckled, “Well done then. All right, Winnie’s turn.”

Eloise obediently stepped to the side so that the little body wrapped in the penguin towel could approach him.

When John lifted her hood he was surprised to find a dark scowl crinkling the delicate little nose and lustrous eyebrows that could only have come from Sherlock. “What’s wrong love?”

“Papa washed me! But I helped! I good too!”

“Of course you are, come on, let’s see if Papa did a good job then.” As John bent to snuffle Winnie’s neck and ears Eloise huffed, clearly disbelieving in Papa’s washing abilities over her own. Jasper’s singing from the doorway obscured the noise, however, and so Winnie just giggled as John buried his nose in her wet hair, the water stretching out the normally tight ringlets.

“You’ll do,” Said John.

“Hm.” Eloise’s nose was firmly in the air.

“Daddy!” Winnie was most displeased with Eloise’s dismissal of her cleanliness.

“I’m joking Winnie, you’re perfect. Just as clean as your sister.” John kissed her forehead. “All right come on you two then,” John said and Winnie sighed at her own dismissal and stood beside Eloise.

The tiger and lion who were holding hands approached John carefully, still learning to walk confidently, especially with their visions obscured by the hoods of their towels.

Sherlock came bounding down the stairs just as the twins reached John; he smiled at the very somber ceremony and dumped the pile of clothing, nappies and powder in his arms on the table. John was grateful that that had been the first thing that he’d tidied this afternoon.

He lifted the lion hood first and was met with a tiny roar from Jasper.

John laughed, “Hello there, how was the bath?” Jasper just giggled as John sniffed him, depositing kisses over the flushed little cheeks. He ruffled Jasper’s short blonde hair into spikes and pinched his nose.

He moved on to Jemima quickly who was wriggling with impatience under her towel. When he lifted her tiger faced hood she gave a little meow and beamed at John, waiting for his praise. John laughed and kissed her nose, reaching for the hood of her towel to start drying her still short blonde hair. Eloise’s hair had been slow to grow as well, whereas Winnie had come out sporting more hair than her older sister possessed at the ripe age of two.

Sherlock handed Eloise her underwear and bent to help Jasper get dry, as John held out Jemima’s nappy for her to step into. She put her little hands on his wrists and leant heavily on them as she tried to navigate her legs through her sleep nappy.

When the children had been dressed, and the three with John’s wispy hair had had their heads towel dried and brushed, Mrs. Hudson had finished the sitting room and moved upstairs.

The children were sent to quietly watch television, except for Winnie who John took to his and Sherlock’s bedroom to blow dry the thick curls. Winnie hated this. She cried and pleaded and buried her face in John’s chest every time he brought out the dryer. But if he didn’t do it her hair would take hours to dry and be so knotted that it would give her a headache from the weight of it. So Winnie buried her face in the Sherlock’s pillow and submitted to John’s careful attentions.

There was shouting coming from the living room, and from what John could make out it centered on whether _Teletubbies_ or _Peppa Pig_ was to be the evening’s viewing. Before Jasper’s ‘no’s’ became too emphatic John heard Sherlock’s deep voice telling them that they were all just going to have to watch _Dora the Explorer_ instead then. The collective complaint at that, even Jemima’s loud plea, meant they became a united front, and a moment later the opening tune to _Peppa Pig_ played.

By the time Winnie’s hair was dry she’d nearly fallen asleep, and if John had been following his routine he would have continued until she was asleep and had Sherlock take her up to bed. But they hadn’t eaten before their baths tonight, and Winnie would wake in the middle of the night starving, she’d done it before. So he called for Sherlock to take her to sit with her siblings and hoped that the blaring television would rouse her enough to eat.

An hour later when the children were dirty again but full bellied and tucked into their little beds and cots upstairs John sunk into his armchair, resting his feet on the seat of Sherlock’s between his thighs. Absently, Sherlock began to rub John’s left toe as he leaned back and thought about something of no present concern to John. It was quiet, for possibly the first time all day and without the near constant clutter of the past few weeks John was able to relax fully into it.

“I think, there is perhaps going to be some trouble,” Sherlock said after so long that John had already begun to doze off.

“Sorry, what?” John blinked hard, trying to think clearly again.

Sherlock paused for a moment and said, “With Moriarty, I think something is coming soon.”

John didn’t know what to say to that and Sherlock didn’t offer any more information.

Over the coming months John would think back to that night, and wonder if it had perhaps been an early cry for help, and he’d been too stupid, too tired, too pregnant to care.

Two months later John was cradling an infant with four children hanging onto his legs by a dark graveside, begging a man he still believed in to not be dead.

 

 


	2. Space

Eloise screamed for Sherlock.

Winnie sat quietly by and watched her older sister throw herself about the room.

Jasper hadn’t sung in days, too scared, too confused.

Jemima’s usual happy quietness had become terrifyingly mute, her smiles all gone.

And John sat in Sherlock’s armchair, wrapped in the man’s dressing gown with a howling infant in his arms and didn’t move.

The baby, born a week before Sherlock fell, was still unnamed two weeks later. Mrs. Hudson came upstairs and attempted to corral the children but they didn’t want John out of their sights, and they didn’t want anything besides John’s attention. And he couldn’t give it to them. He was aware of Mrs. Hudson taking the baby and changing her nappy and feeding her a bottle, aware of the woman chatting away at him. Aware of his children alternately screaming and watching him carefully but he couldn’t do anything about the fear in their eyes. Couldn’t manage to think beyond watching the man he had loved above all else come to pieces on the pavement outside St. Bart’s.

He heard Molly’s nervous voice, felt her touch his arm and take the squalling baby away.

He knew that Greg came at some point, sat in John’s chair and tried to talk to him, but John didn’t have any reason to listen.

And then Mycroft came and said nothing, did nothing, only sat in John’s chair and watched him.

John looked back at him, aware of something beyond the images in his own head for the first time in days.

“Hello,” Mycroft said after the longest time.

John nodded his head in acknowledgement. He looked about the room, the children were all gone, he wondered where they had gone, but he wasn’t worried. Mrs. Hudson would have them taken care of. Mycroft wouldn’t let harm come to them.

They sat in silence for what felt like hours, and the whole time Mycroft stared at John, not calculatingly, and not pityingly, just looking.

At last John said, “Why?” And buried his face in his hands at the tremble in his voice, at the tears that irritated the corners of his eyes.

Mycroft didn’t say anything immediately, he watched as John came to pieces on Sherlock’s abandoned armchair, he watched as John cried into Sherlock’s blue dressing gown, and he watched as John sniffed and looked back at him for an answer.

Mycroft nodded at him, ‘well done’, it said. “I don’t know John. But it had to be done. I know my brother and he had to have had valid reasons. Whatever happened, he wasn’t suicidal, we both know that.”

“Well clearly he was!” The shout was unexpected and John’s throat felt raw. His fingers were white where they were gripping the armrests.

Mycroft paused, licked his lips, and sighed a little, “Was he? You, who has been by his side for years, never noticed it. It never crossed your mind that he might be?”

John shook his head, “I was busy, I was tired, and I was self-involved.” John shrunk back into the seat of the chair, letting go the armrests as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, “You honestly believe that you would not have seen it? You honestly believe that in all that was happening around you at the time if he had been so severely depressed you would not have seen it?”

John shook his head, “Clearly not.”

Mycroft scoffed, “You’re not thinking John. You didn’t see him before, before he was clean, at his worst he was never suicidal. Every overdose was the result of an experiment.”

John looked at him incredulously, “Are you trying to tell me that he jumped off a roof as part of an experiment?”

“No. But he had a reason before, and he had a reason when he leapt from the roof. You have to believe it.” Mycroft took a deep breath. “Whatever my brother was he was not cruel, he had to have believed he was doing the right thing for you. And whether or not we ever know what that reason is you have to believe in it, for you and the sake of your children.”

John scoffed, “I just have to believe and everything will be okay, is that it?”

Mycroft shook his head, “No. But you have to get off that chair, get dressed and take care of the five children that you also made a commitment too. Sherlock being gone doesn’t negate that promise.”

John shot up from the chair, “I know that!”

Mycroft looked up at him, looking honestly uncertain, “Do you?”

It took the wind out of John’s sails; he didn’t know what to say to that. So he took a step away from the still sitting man and wrapped the robe more firmly around himself. He wondered to the window and looked out at the grey sky, he remembered seeing four dirty little faces out this window, seeing a beautiful man teaching their children, making them laugh and gasp with surprise. “Where are they?” John said at last, his voice quiet.

“Miss Hooper took the baby yesterday evening to her home, Mrs. Hudson has the twins down stairs, and Detective Lestrade took the girls.”

John turned around, “What?”

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow.

“Why are they separated?” John was feeling a bit frantic.

Mycroft stood from his chair, “Who was going to able to look after five children all at once, all who are dealing with grief and require special attention.”

“Where were you? Aren’t you supposed to be looking after us?”

Mycroft held his hands out, “I am exactly where I needed to be, don’t you think?”

John wanted to shake something. “I’m having a shower. Bring them home now please.”

He didn’t wait for a response before he stalked away.

A half an hour later he was dressed, and drinking a cup of tea while he waited for his children to be delivered to him. Mycroft had gone to personally collect them, and Mrs. Hudson, John could hear now, was bringing the twins back upstairs. Jasper was on her hip when she came into the sitting room, his face buried in her neck and Jemima’s little hands were scrunched firmly in her skirt for support as she toddled slowly beside her. John set his cup down on the desk and reached for the little girl, she looked hesitant, confused, but went into his arms willingly.

“Daddy,” Was all she said before she started crying, great breathy sobs. “Ow.” She tapped her chest, “Ow.”

John closed his eyes and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

Jasper was looking at them from Mrs. Hudson’s arms, when he saw John turn to look back at him he lifted his arms out, waiting for John to take him too. John moved Jemima to one hip and took Jasper in his other arm.

Immediately, Jasper reached up and gave John his approximation of a kiss on John’s jaw. It was more wet smacking than anything but John didn’t care.

He kissed their little faces and settled on the couch with them wrapped in his arms. They petted at him and each other, babbled only a little and buried their noses in his neck.

Mrs. Hudson only cooed for a moment before she left again.

By the time Mycroft returned with the baby in his arms and Winnie and Eli by his sides the twins were silent again, resting heavily on John’s chest and close to sleep.

Eloise approached him silently. Her normally calculating face strangely blank, her mischievous eyes somber. He took the hand that was rubbing circles into Jasper’s back and held it out to her. She looked at it for a moment and then nodding took his hand and clambered onto the couch next to him, cuddling into the crook of his arm beside her little brother.

Winnie was looking around the room.

“Winnie?” John called.

She looked at him, confused, “Papa?”

John took a great shuddering breath and held out his last free hand to her. Mycroft helped her onto the couch so that John could wrap her in that arm, “He’s not here, Winnie.”

She still looked confused and held out her hands in question, “Come back soon?”

John shook his head, “No, love, he’s not.”

Winnie was frowning at him but Eloise was already shaking her head at her, “Later Winnie, Daddy first,” She whispered it like she didn’t think that John could hear them from where he was sitting between them.

Winnie was still frowning but she cuddled into John’s side and pulled his arm around her tight.

Mycroft had made himself comfortable in John’s armchair and was staring adoringly at John’s youngest child.

John thought that Mycroft had become too captivated by the baby’s soft snuffles too pay attention to anything else in the room, so he startled when Mycroft suddenly turned piercing eyes on him. “You’ll have to name the baby John. She’s nearly four weeks old now, this is bordering on abusive.”

John frowned at him, but didn’t rail at the man like he desperately wanted to; Jasper and Jemima were now properly sleeping and Winnie wasn’t far away. Eloise was watching him with careful eyes.

The baby had been born a week before everything ended. Sherlock had been there at her birth, had kissed and cried over her and then saw her perhaps two or three more times before John saw him jump off a building. They hadn’t had time.

“I know, I will, it’s a big decision.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, “Not that difficult though. Pick any name, if she doesn’t like it later, I’ll change it for her.”

John rolled his eyes.

“It’s what I already know I’ll be doing for Jemima and Winifred.”

“Hey! Their names are beautiful! It suits them.” John’s indignation was delivered in a harsh whisper so it may not have been all that effective.

Mycroft merely smirked at him. “And what name will you give this baby?”

John shook his head, “Before, you know, before… well, anyway, I was thinking Sidney.”

Mycroft looked down at the baby and bestowed on her a rare genuine smile, “Sidney, will, perhaps, not require my services after all.”

John rolled his eyes again, but didn’t say anything as he shifted a bit to lean his head back against the top of the couch. Eloise was finally hunkering down to sleep too and the pile of sleep heavy limbs and drowsy breaths was making John tired.

He’d close his eyes for a bit, and then he’d figure out the rest later.

 

* * *

 

“There’s a space.”

“What?” John was intensely uncomfortable, the tiny cupboard that they had jammed themselves into meant that they had to contort to make the door close.

Harry huffed, “There’s a space.”

“Where? My foot’s asleep, I need to move it.”

Harry hit him on the head, “That’s not what I meant.”

John tried to look incredulously at her, but it was so dark he could only make a rough estimation of where her face was.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t you feel it?”

“Harry, I swear to God, I will hit you, I don’t care if you’re a girl, no matter what Mum says.”

Harry’s breath hitched, she coughed, and “She’s gone Johnny.”

“What?”

She coughed again, her voice was hoarse, “Can’t you feel it here?” She put her hand on his chest. How she could manage to see, John couldn’t figure out.

“Feel what?”

“Johnny, Mummy’s gone!”

“Shush, they’ll hear us,” John chastised, too confused to even begin to understand what Harry was trying to tell him.

“She’s dead John. Can’t you feel it?”

“What? No. Of course I can’t feel that. How do you know anyway?”

Harry was quiet for a few moments, “I can feel it in my heart. She’s been gone for ages, and they haven’t let us go back to Dad yet. Mummy’s dead.”

John frowned, “Well how d’you know Dad isn’t dead too then? Christ, you’re so stupid.”

“I saw it John!”

“Saw what?” John kicked out roughly not caring that he caught her painfully in her side, he had to stretch his leg out.

“When they came and told him, I saw them tell him and he cried and then Aunt Maggie came and got us.”

It was beginning to dawn on John what Harry was saying. “But, how… could she be dead?”

Harry’s voice was waterlogged when she said, “I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

John awoke with a start. The kids were thumping away upstairs. Mycroft was sipping tea and still cradling Sidney in the crook of his arm in the armchair.

The dream had been so vivid, so real. It had felt more like a memory than a dream, but John didn’t remember hiding in a cupboard with Harry, didn’t remember if that had been the way he’d discovered his mother’s death or not.

“Oh, I see you’re awake John. Well I’ll be off now.” Mycroft stood and handed Sidney to John. “She had milk an hour ago, and only a wet nappy.”

John blinked at the idea of Mycroft changing a dirty nappy.

Mycroft simpered, “Yes. Well. I’ll sort out Sidney’s naming documents shall I? I’ll just let the children know I’m leaving. Anthea will be around shortly to deliver dinner. Ta Ra John.”

John looked down at the newborn in his arms. She felt so familiar there in his arms, and he knew intellectually that he’d held her everyday since she’d been born, and yet looking into her face he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d properly looked at her since the first few days. She was already less squishy, her little chin was sharper than his other children’s had been and her nose was a little more dainty, a little more like Winnie’s than the others’. He dared to hope that finally there’d be more than one little Sherlock look-alike wondering around.

He touched her nose and she wrinkled it in her sleep, frowning at the annoyance. John smiled and touched her lips with his finger, automatically she began to suckle. 

Inexplicably John began to cry, "There's a space Sidney, can you feel it?"

 


	3. Not Gone

John was making breakfast when he came in. He was still half asleep and in his dressing gown, he threw himself into the chair beside Eloise and buried his head in his arms to drown out the baby babble.

John reheated the kettle and turned the pan back on to make more eggs. The children, well used to the morning routine, ignored the sulking man in the corner and continued to prevaricate over their own breakfasts.

“Winnie, stop throwing your beans, eat them or leave them,” John said, placing down the freshly made tea. He got no thanks, not that he was expecting any.

“Yeah Winnie, you’re such a baby,” Eloise sneered.

John tapped her on the head, “Stop that.”

Winnie leaned forward and picked up a bean from her plate with her lips. She chewed on it as she watched Eloise.

“You’re gross,” Eloise said, getting up from the table. Winnie looked triumphant and John pushed Eloise back into her chair.

“You’ve not eaten anything yet, back you go.”

Eloise huffed, “But I’m not hungry.”

“I really couldn’t care less Eloise, sit down and eat your toast.”

Eloise scowled but morosely chewed on her cold toast. John ruffled the twins’ hair on his way back to the stove to take care of the cooking eggs.

He could hear the baby begin to fuss in the other room, “Get her would you?”

It was only when he was spooning the scrambled eggs onto a clean plate that he realised that Eloise had mistakenly thought he had been speaking to her. She was standing on the seat of John’s chair, leaning over the bassinet and trying to pull Sidney out.

“No, Eli, what are you doing?” John rushed forward, forgetting the eggs.

Eloise looked startled, “You told me to get her!”

John shook his head as he rescued Sidney from Eloise’s fumbling little hands. “No, I was talking to your father.”

The frown on her face was so profound that John did a double take.

They stared at each other for a moment before Eloise said quietly, “But I thought you said Papa wasn’t coming back?”

John’s knees trembled and nearly gave way as he looked over at the kitchen table and found that the chair that Sherlock had been sitting in not a minute ago was completely empty, a forlorn cup of tea sitting in front of it, completely untouched. The other children hadn’t noticed anything unusual but Eloise was looking at him oddly.

John couldn’t find his voice, but he nodded and rocked Sidney.

“Is he back?” Eloise asked, still standing on the armchair.

John shook his head, “No… I… um… sorry,” John’s voice was so hoarse he wasn’t sure if Eloise understood him but she must have because even though she didn’t stop looking worried she got off the chair and re-joined her siblings in the kitchen, eating her toast without complaint this time. Not that John would have said anything at this point anyway. He sunk onto the couch. Sidney’s fussing had stopped when he’d picked her up but it was starting up again now that she’d felt she’d waited long enough for her milk.

“All right, Sweetheart,” John said, moving back to the kitchen and resolutely not looking at the fresh eggs, or the still warm tea, or the man that was impatiently tapping his fingers on the side of the cup.

 

* * *

 

 

Jasper and Jemima were arguing. Hair pulling and snatching hands. Eloise and Winnie had each taken a side. They were shouting and crying. Sidney was screaming from her bassinet; fussy and not hungry, and not lonely, or wet, just disconsolate. And John tore at his hair with his hands and sunk to his knees in the short hallway off the sitting room. He couldn’t do this. It was far too much.

“They’re bored,” Said Sherlock from where he was leaning against the wall, his legs stretched out and crossed casually at the ankle.

John grunted, not sure if he should acknowledge the comment or not. Not sure if he was fucking losing it or not. Would it be better to ignore the voices or accept them? Or, in this case; the voice: the man.

“Let’s start an experiment,” Sherlock launched himself from the wall and strode out into the sitting room. John, curious, got up and followed.

Sherlock was puttering by the bookshelves, obviously looking for something specific in piles of ambiguous materials.

The manic shouting from the children continued, and John leaned against the entryway and watched Sherlock flit across the room, adeptly stepping over the children and dodging their projectiles. Eventually Sherlock turned to him and said, “Let’s go to the park!” And then he was gone, striding down the stairs without waiting for John or the children, like usual. John smiled fondly, and set himself to waiting for Sherlock to realise and come home. He moved into the sitting room and sat on the couch, prepared for the very long wait.

The children fell silent eventually, and at the sudden lack in noise John looked down at where they’d staged their war on the sitting room floor. Eloise was looking back at him, worried again. Jasper and Jemima were holding each other both with tear stained cheeks. Winnie was holding onto his leg and rubbing her face into his knee, how had he missed that? Snot was staining his trouser leg.

“Honestly John, are you going to be all day?” Sherlock called up from where he was climbing the stairs back to the flat.

Sidney was still crying, so Sherlock walked over to her bassinet and reached inside, patting her little cheek. “Hm. A little bit of a fever, still, could just be a bit hot from all the crying.”

John stood, carefully setting Winnie aside to stand next to Sherlock and look down into the bassinet. Sidney’s face was scrunched painfully, her hands and legs kicking viciously.

Sherlock put his hand on the small of John’s back and John picked up the baby, bringing her to settle in his arms between their bodies. He re-swaddled her and tucked her face into his neck, at being placed so close to his warmth and scent she began to mewl softly, settling down again. Sherlock leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of her head, and then to John’s forehead.

“Daddy? I’m hungry.” John leaned around Sherlock to see Eloise still watching him carefully, Winnie now in her arms.

John was dumbfounded; he didn’t think he’d ever heard Eloise ask for food before.

“Of course, Sweetheart, let’s get you something to eat.” He went into the kitchen, immediately missing Sherlock’s heat as he stepped away from him. But Sherlock stayed in the sitting room and picked up his violin; happy, light music today.

John fixed a plate of carrots and apple for Eloise and absently handed it to her as he began to prepare a bottle for the no doubt ravenous baby still in his arms. It was only once he’d settled into his armchair and had Sidney greedily suckling away that he realised the plate of food was being devoured by everyone but Eloise.

“I thought you were hungry, why aren’t you eating?” John readjusted himself, bringing the cloth resting on Sidney’s chest higher so that the milk slipping out of the sides of her mouth landed on it rather than her sleep suit.

Eloise blushed, “I lied.”

John frowned, “Why?”

“Because they were hungry but you weren’t listening to them,” Eloise gestured to her younger siblings, currently too busy eating to even begin to pay attention to what was going on around them.

Sherlock stopped playing and turned around to look at John, “You didn’t hear,” Sherlock said, confused.

“They asked for food?” John was feeling a little disturbed, he pulled the bottle back a little so that Sidney could catch her breath a bit and slow down.

Eloise nodded, still embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear them at all. You didn’t have to lie Eli, everyone gets to have food in the house,” John knew that he was saying the words but he was in an odd state of shock where he couldn’t believe that he had to be saying them. How had he not heard his children begging him for food? When they were hungry they tended to be as demanding as any children he’d ever seen. What was wrong with him?

Sidney finished her bottle and John moved to burp her. “Who wants takeaway?”

Eloise smiled at him, pleased.

Winnie looked at him with large pale eyes. “Yes,” She said.

 

* * *

 

 

 “Harry?”

“Yeah,” Harry whispered back in the darkness of her room.

John slipped in through the crack of her door, and made his way over to her bed. She lifted the blanket and he crawled in next to her.

“Bad dream?” She asked.

John nodded against the pillow. They were quiet for a little while before John said, “I’m hungry.”

Harry sighed, “I know Johnny. Me too.”

“Why’s Dad so mad all the time?” John hiccupped.

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

John couldn’t get up. He couldn’t move. He was lying on his side facing the wall, the blanket wrapped tightly around him and he couldn’t get up. He heard Jemima and Jasper whinging from upstairs, demanding to be freed from their cots. Sidney was fussing in her bassinet next to the bed. Eloise and Winnie were fighting, trying to turn on the television in the sitting room, and John couldn’t get up.

“You have to get up,” Sherlock said from where he was lounging on the lion’s share of the bed, behind John.

John couldn’t answer the ghost.

“You’re being ridiculous and boring.” Sherlock stood up. “I’m only a bit dead. There’s lots of other things to be doing.”

John squeezed his eyes shut tight as Sherlock rounded the bed and crouched in front of him. “You have to move John. You’re going to lose the children. Do you understand?”

John hiccupped, “I already have,” he said into his pillow.

Sherlock put his hands against the mattress and started rocking it, “You have to get up. You have to get up. You haven’t lost them yet, but you will.”

“I have.”

Sherlock shouted. “They’re mine and yours. Do you understand? And you’re you. You’re not him. And the children aren’t you. This isn’t the same. But it will be if you don’t stop this.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You can. You just have to start.”

“I shouldn’t have too! It’s not fair,” John shouted back, sitting suddenly upright in bed, looking down into Sherlock’s frowning face.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re my children John. Are you going to do this to my children too?”

John wiped at the tears tickling his cheeks.

“They’re your babies. They’re scared, and confused and you’re not helping!” Sherlock stood up and put his hand on the back of John’s neck, pulling his head forward to rest on Sherlock’s stomach. “Don’t be selfish. You never were before, don’t start now,” He said quietly.

John nodded against Sherlock’s body, wrapping his arms around the other man’s torso.

“I love you,” Sherlock said, dipping down to kiss the top of John’s head. “Don’t let yourself down. Just start.”


	4. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's shocking, but no this story is not abandoned. I'm just slow.

John had to move. Sherlock was everywhere, always just lounging out of the corner of his eye. The kids were confused enough already and John was loath to destabilize them further but he couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t live like he was waiting for Sherlock to come back anymore.

As it was, if Sherlock had been alive they would probably have had to find different lodgings anyway. Four young children in John’s old bedroom was stretching it.

Sherlock had left his sizeable inheritance solely to John, which meant that he wasn’t limited by finance but rather imagination. He had no real desire to leave Sherlock and all that he had left behind, and so finding the motivation to research a new home was beyond difficult. With plenty of distractions in the form of five little beings, it took a whole month after John had made his decision to move for him to sit down in front of his laptop and look for a new place to live.

With Eloise off at Nursery and Mrs. Hudson presiding over the middle three, John rocked Sidney’s cradle with his foot as he perused the internet for something close by Mrs. Hudson, enough room for everyone and for a reasonable amount of money that wouldn’t make John anxious to spend on a home. After an hour John was so frustrated he had to stop rocking the baby in case he went too fast. He slammed the computer closed and marched himself off to make tea.

Sidney’s coos were distracting after that, and John somehow spent two hours making faces and playing with her cheeks, so he didn’t have time to research anymore before it was time to pick up Eloise.

Two weeks later Mycroft appeared with a set of keys and a contract already bearing John’s crisp signature.

“I hope this will do,” Mycroft said, exchanging documents for John’s armful of baby.

Before John could so much as protest Mycroft was walking up the stairs, following the sounds of laughing children.

John knew he was meant to be angry with Mycroft, knew that that was their dynamic, and that Mycroft’s interference should have been unwelcome. Much to his consternation John couldn’t muster up the ire to be more than marginally offended, and found himself more relieved than anything else. Until he saw how much Mycroft had paid for it. John nearly had a heart attack, as it was his legs gave out and he found himself abruptly in Sherlock’s chair.

What on earth was Mycroft thinking? A nine-bedroom apartment overlooking Regent’s Park? Was Mycroft insane? What was John supposed to do with that? He only had five children.

If Sherlock had been alive he’d have wrung Mycroft’s neck at the very suggestion. But then, if Sherlock had been alive, this wouldn’t have happened anyway. So really it was all Sherlock’s fault. Again. It always came back to Sherlock and his leap off that fucking roof.

 

* * *

 

 

Winnie’s third birthday featured blue icing, packing boxes and Jemima breaking her arm while attempting to climb the kitchen chair. John had never seen Mycroft panicked before, and it had the odd effect of calming him right down. As the chair had clattered to the ground and the unmistakable sound of flesh and bone hitting tile had registered John had been sent into a tailspin. Mycroft had been the closest and so he lifted the shaking little girl to his chest, and John had seen Mycroft’s fear, had smelled his distress and heard him stuttering soothing words to her. And John knew this. He knew crisis, and danger, and he was an army doctor for god sakes. John took Jemima from Mycroft’s arms, while she was still too shocked to cry and stepped into the waiting black car with her.

It had been a clean break and Jemima had only remembered to cry half way to the hospital, and had fallen asleep before they’d finished setting her arm. John had returned to boxes and walls alike covered in blue icing, Jasper passed out naked on the landing, Eloise quietly reading a book upside down and Winnie crying in the middle of John’s bed with her new Barbie clutched tightly to her chest, the blonde hair crudely shorn off.

Mycroft was in the kitchen, staring into a cup of untouched coffee.

 

* * *

  

The apartment was cavernous. John refused to use half of it. And Sherlock came anyway. John was stacking books on shelves, Jasper and Jemima taking turns ripping them off again when Sherlock slouched into the study. He threw himself on the chesterfield and scoffed at John’s attempts at order.

John carefully didn’t turn around. The twins babbled to each other, explaining complex plots of novels or something and John used all of his focus to try and decipher their words.

“BORING.” Sherlock bellowed, John jumped. Jasper turned a confused eye onto his father and stopped mid word.

“Dada?” Jasper’s concerned tone had Jemima turning around and offering John her book for comfort.

“I’m all right, just got a bit of a fright.” He smiled at the little girl and gently took the book from her grubby fingers, placing it back on the shelf.

“John, BORED.” Sherlock threw himself around on the couch in an apparent bid to get comfortable.

John swallowed and cleared his throat. “Let’s go make lunch, shall we?”

He stood up and took a child in each arm. Sherlock was already in the kitchen, rifling through a box that John hadn’t yet reached. John turned on his heel and made for Winnie and Eloise’s room. Eloise had been under strict instruction to unpack their toys. When John arrived they were hiding in boxes and giggling wildly. Eloise’s face paled at the sight of him, clearly expecting chastisement, but John was too relieved at the emptiness of the room to pay much mind. He set the twins down and joined them on the floor.

 

* * *

 

John was blow drying Winnie’s hair after her bath. The little girl lying face down on the bed, her face smashed into a pillow and beginning to snore softly. Timmy Time was blaring from the sitting room and the setting was so familiar that John didn’t even notice Sherlock lying on the bed next to Winnie at first. Not until Sherlock’s hand got in the way of the blow dryer as he carded his fingers through Winnie’s hair.

John coughed, turned off the hair dryer, busied himself with putting it away in the dresser, Sherlock didn’t move.

John didn’t turn around. “I miss you.” His voice broke half way and John had to give himself a moment before he could continue. Even then it was so scratchy and high pitched that he didn’t know if he could be heard, if he was being listened to at all that was. “I don’t know how to do this without you. But I’m trying. I do know I can’t do this with you here like this. You’ve got to go. I’ve got to let you go.”

John left the room without turning around, and when he came back ten minutes later to carry Winnie to bed Sherlock was gone.

 

* * *

 

It got better. Sherlock stopped talking to him, stopped showing up everywhere John went. But he was still there. When John went to bed at night Sherlock curled up behind and on top of him. When John took the tube Sherlock was always just ducking out of the station ahead of him. When John put the kids to bed Sherlock trailed and placed a kiss on each of their heads. When Eloise turned five Sherlock played her a song on the violin that John had left at Baker street.

But mostly John got on. It wasn’t quite as bad as before Sherlock. He didn’t greet every morning with a sigh and a caress for his gun. But he thought about it. He didn’t limp to a therapist and ignore every word and limp back to a dark bedsit. But he saw a therapist. He didn’t dread leaving London and everything that he knew behind. But he dreamed about it.

 

* * *

 

He took the children to the zoo, and taught them their letters and numbers. He helped Sidney roll over for the first time, and took videos of her first laugh, her first attempt at crawling, her first attempts at a word. He took Eloise to Reception and Winnie to Nursery. He grieved with the twins when their sisters left them behind. He visited Mrs. Hudson and never took her offers to take all the children for a day or two. Because what would John do without them? Sit in a darkened room with a gun in his hand?

  

* * *

 

 

Christmas came and Mycroft kidnapped them and took them home to his parents. Mummy Holmes baked biscuits with the children, Mycroft showed Sidney state secrets and Daddy Holmes hugged John so fiercely he cried for the first time.

  

* * *

 

 

John saw Sherlock less.

 

* * *

 

The twins turned two. The flat was filled with running toddlers and overwhelmed mothers. John and Mycroft hid in the kitchen with a flask each and giggled entirely too much. Mycroft stayed over that night, and then didn’t leave again. He moved into the half of the flat that John had refused to use.

 

* * *

 

One Tuesday morning, John came home after the school rounds with Sidney in his arms and tripping over the twins running between his feet to find Greg sitting on his couch half dressed, red faced, and eating a pot of Winnie’s strawberry yoghurt. John turned around and took the kids to the park instead.

Mycroft found him later, sitting on a bench watching the twins on their own unsteady gaits help Sidney toddle around the soft grass.

“I apologise, Gregory was not supposed to be there by the time you got home.”

John coughed, “How long?”

Mycroft shifted a bit, “Nearly ten months.”

John didn’t need to do that mental math. He knew that count better than he knew his own age.

“So… after, after…” John still couldn’t manage to finish that sentence. “You just moved on, just like that?”

“Move on?” Mycroft’s tone was incredulous but John didn’t take his eyes off the children to see his expression. “No.” That was softer. “I don’t think either of us will ever move on John. I was lonely.”

John scoffed, “You’ve always been lonely.”

“Perhaps, but I was never alone.”

John finally turned to face him, “So you replaced him?”

Mycroft shook his head, “No, I found comfort.”

John wanted to be angry. But he understood. He understood because Mycroft was his comfort. The children were his comfort.

 

* * *

 

When Sidney turned one John didn’t get out of bed, until Greg sauntered in, half dressed, and tossed Jasper onto the bed.

“That boy’s nappy is full. And after last time I refuse to touch it, or him.”

Jasper giggled at the manhandling and wriggled up the bed and pressed his face against John’s.

“Hi Daddy!”

John cringed, “Not so loud, Daddy’s still waking up.”

“Daddy tired?”

John nodded, stroking too long hair out of dark blue eyes.

Jasper looked concerned, before he gave John a big smile and leant forward a fraction, dropping a very wet kiss to John’s cheek.

“Feel better?”

John laughed and tickled the little boy until he giggled so hard he farted. They stared at each other in shock for a moment and then John burst into laughter, Jasper joining in a fraction of a second later.

  

* * *

 

 

John had never thought he’d wind up living a communal lifestyle with his five children and the brother of his deceased husband. And yet in mid-April Greg was present more than he wasn’t, and Mycroft walked around without his suit jacket. Scandalous. The children were happier than they’d been in months and John was starting to feel more settled, maybe. Then it was the 12th of May and this time when John didn’t get out of bed no one made him. John spent the day reliving every single moment of the day Sherlock left him. It didn’t help that he could still feel Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him. Didn’t help that Sherlock was whispering apologies and explanations in his ear. Nothing helped and John cried himself to sleep.

Daddy and Mummy Holmes paid a visit that weekend. The children were over the moon, Mycroft tolerated it and Greg was notably absent.

In the kitchen over another clandestine flask John lifted an eyebrow, “Greg?”

Mycroft very nearly blushed, “Thought it best to stay home this weekend.”

“He still has a home?” John took a drink.

“He keeps a flat yes.”

John rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet, “Tell your parents Mycroft, don’t be such a child, there’s no one to play with you anymore.”

  

* * *

 

 

Winnie turned four. Eloise had her first day of year one. She turned six. Christmas at the Holmes’. A January wedding in Mycroft’s office. The twins turned three and learnt the usefulness of full sentences. Sidney turned two and refused to let John cut her fingernails.

And it was two years, and John didn’t get out of bed. He didn’t see Sherlock at all anymore. Two weeks prior John had broken down when he realized he hadn’t felt Sherlock in bed with him in months, and he hadn’t even noticed. 

And then John opened his front door on his way to collect the girls from school and found Sherlock waiting for him.


End file.
